All That Glitters Gold
by tii-chan17
Summary: -Set before, during and after the Winter War- When Gin left, Rangiku promised herself she wouldn't miss him. It was what he wanted to do, right? But as the Winter War rages around them, will she find that some things can't be solved with mind over matter?


**A/N: Yeah...so I'm in a weird mood today, and I really felt like writing a oneshot. So I did! And it's probably the most depressing thing I've ever come up with...**

**Anyways, this idea came to me...when I was sitting at my computer, staring at a blank Word document with the title All That Glitters Gold in my head. Then I wrote the first sentence that came into said head, and it all stemmed from there! I was going to leave it at...a certain point, (trying not to give irritating spoilers) but then I realised it was only about 500 words, and I blankly refuse to write anything less than 1,000! So, I added a bit, and I like it much better now!**

**You know what? I've never written angst before, and in one of my multi-chapter fics, I was thinking about writing an angsty chapter. But I had no idea how to write angst, so...yeah. I enlisted the help of one of my gorgeous reviewers to instruct me on how to make people cry...with a story. I probably didn't do that well with this, but whatever! This fic is dedicated to TheSecondQuincy, who instructed me on how to produce angsty stuff, and probably won't really like this, 'cos they're a reviewer for my _HitsuMatsu _fic. But who cares? It's angst.**

**I should probably stop yammering, as no one's going to read this anyway. Hope you enjoy! XD**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters. All credit goes to Kubo Tite and his awesome manga!  
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All That Glitters Gold

She didn't miss him. She knew that much.

No, on the contrary, she was glad he'd gone. That he was free. He'd only joined Seireitei for her sake; to protect her, to allow her to smile. And now that she didn't need protecting anymore, he'd split. So? It was only fair, right?

She knew he was doing what he wanted. Even if what he wanted was kind of messed up, she couldn't deny him that.

She didn't miss him. She didn't miss him at all.

But it was getting harder and harder to smile.

...

On the battle field was red. Red blood, red anger, red pain.

And yet Rangiku could still see the flash of silver among it all.

There he was; slitted eyes and creepy grin in place. The ultimate poker face. But she knew him well; they'd grown up together. She could see the worry, the stress, even if no one else could.

He glanced over at her. She knew what he saw: his exact opposite. Bright golden hair, wide blue eyes and stern expression. Her face didn't change as she stared him down, and she thought she saw a small, real smile flash across his face for a split second before he looked away. He understood, then. She wasn't broken by his leaving.

And he was glad.

...

She saw him and his asshole of a boss go through the Senkaimon. She followed with one of her own, paying no heed to the ache in her side as she ran. Oh, he was going to get it now. He couldn't leave her behind _again_.

But she didn't miss him.

Never.

...

Ah, how ironic.

She'd followed him and he'd attacked her.

All to keep her safe, apparently.

That was some messed up logic.

She was waking up now, her forehead furrowing from the weight of her splitting headache.

Damn him. He'd gone again.

It was like she was playing some sinister game of tag. Found you! Or not. Are you over here? No.

It was really grating on her nerves. She had to talk to him.

She clambered laboriously up to her feet. Woah, her head felt strange. And since when had the world taken to revolving in circles around her?

…Wait a second.

His reiatsu. Where was it? It had gone! No, that wasn't possible, he couldn't have—

Rangiku scouted the area with her mind, concentrating solely on detecting any small flicker of his energy. Ah, there it was. Small, tiny even, but there. He couldn't leave her before she had a chance to say goodbye. There was no way in hell she'd let him get away with that.

She ran as fast as she could in the direction of his life force. She vaguely acknowledged the massive flare in the ryoka boy's reiatsu. So he was finally kicking Aizen's ass, was he? God knew the bastard deserved it.

She burst into the area, blatantly ignoring the battle ensuing only a short distance away.

_Gin!_ Her mind was shrieking like a banshee.

He was lying crumpled on the torn-up ground, paler than ever before. Arm gone, most of his chest missing and the rest covered with blood.

_Gin! No, don't leave! Please don't! Gin! _

She bent over his prone body, the necklace he'd given her slipping out of her clothing and glittering a marvellous golden in the sunlight.

His eyes slid closed.

...

Rangiku woke up with a gasp. She looked around; she was sitting in a chair in a strange room. Huh? When had she got there?

She stood up shakily. That was one more recurring nightmare to plague her at night, then. Crap. When she'd woken up, for a split second, she'd thought, _It wasn't real. Gin's still here. _No such luck.

Rangiku slumped back down in her designated chair, wondering how and when she'd got there. There was a huge hole in her memory; if she hadn't known better, she'd have thought she had a hangover.

After Gin had shut his eyes, she remembered some Fourth Division lackeys prying her away from his…corpse, speaking words she couldn't hear or understand. The only thing she could comprehend was the crippling grief at her loss. After then, black.

Okay, she admitted it; she missed him.

She missed him like hell.

"Ran…chan?"

Her head snapped up. No. No way.

Gin was propped up in a hospital bed, (so she was in the Fourth after all) looking at her.

"Is that you?" he asked groggily. Obviously he'd been awake even less time than her.

"…Gin?" she choked out, not willing to let herself believe it.

"I'm here, Ran-chan." he assured her, holding out his reattached arm to allow her to fall into his chest. "God, I missed ya." he mumbled into her hair.

"I…I missed you too, Gin." she sobbed, the tears of joy finally coming.

They clung to each other for a while, neither willing to let go of what they held most precious. Their friendship; more valuable than all the gold in the world.

Suddenly she remembered. "Gin! What about Central 46? They'll—"

"Calm down, Ran-chan. D'ya really think they'd nurse me back into good health jus' ta execute me again?" he reasoned, chuckling lightly.

"…True." She glanced over at the small bedside table she clambered over to reach him. "What's this?" she asked, holding up the letter that had been on it.

"Dunno. How's about ya open it an' see?" he suggested, not letting go of her waist when she unwrapped her arm from his neck.

She opened the paper and skimmed it quickly. "Well, what do you know? It's a letter from the Central 46."

"What does it say?"

She began to read it out, skipping the boring bits. "_Ichimaru Gin, we hereby address you to inform you of the charges…_yada yada_…Soul Society's enemy, Aizen Sousuke…_so on and so forth. Wait, this bit looks interesting! _However, in light of the reasons you had to take the actions you did, we of the Central 46 have concluded that an execution, the traditional punishment for traitors, is unnecessary. Following that, your actions cannot go unpunished, and as a result, you will spend thirty years under strict surveillance and are forbidden to enter the World of the Living for an indefinite period of time. Should you break these conditions—_yeah, it's back to being boring again. What do you think, Gin? You've been let off scot-free! Well, almost…"

"Yeah. I gotta say, I'm surprised. Though it'll kinda suck not being able to go to the Livin' World. I bet that Ichigo kid's jus' dyin' ta see me again, huh?" Gin grinned at her, obviously (to her) relieved.

"In your dreams. I'm glad you're back, Gin. Life's pretty suckish without you and your creepy-ass smile." she teased him, poking him lightly in the shoulder.

"I know. I missed ya too, Ran-chan." he told her again.

But still she felt something was missing; something not right.

Gin placed a hand on the back of her neck and brought her head down for a long, sweet kiss.

Ah, so that's what it had been…

Fin.

**A/N: Happy ending, YAY! I am really not good with tragedies, so I decided to lighten it up a bit! Also, I hate the idea of Gin dying. So he didn't. And maybe the Central 46's verdict _was_ kinda lenient for them, but maybe they just love Gin as much as I do?**

**So...it's been a while since I wrote a GinRan fic, and I know it's not one of the best, but I do lurve to read all your comments about it, so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ICE CREAM, REVIEW! All you lactose intolerants out there: can y'all review anyway, please? Thankies to you. x**

**Happy New Year and LONG LIVE GINRAN! **

**~tii-chan17**


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